Card Chopping Broccoli

Nearly all of my memories of Saturday Night Live sketches come from the period between 1985 and 1990. Once I was old enough to stay up on a Saturday to watch SNL -- or at least old enough to tape the show on our fancy Curtis Mathes VCR...

...which looked a lot like that, as best I can recall -- I watched the show until I graduated high school or at least until it still was funny to me. As a result, I tend to remember guys like Phil Hartman, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, and Dana Carvey and women like Nora Dunn and Victoria Jackson as "SNL." 

In that way, I feel like SNL is kind of like baseball in some respects. We remember our first exposure to the game -- the first superstars that we cheered for, or the our favorite team's best season -- as being better than that which followed. I haven't watched SNL pretty much at all since about 1996 or so, when sometimes after a night out in law school when I lived in walking distance of downtown Athens, I'd come home to SNL on TV (when I came home early).

My mind works in ways sometimes that are weird, in that it will attach a certain song/TV show/movie line to a certain word. I hear the word "smile" and Pearl Jam's "Smile" starts going in my head. I hear the word "profits" and Franz Ferdinand's song "The Dark of the Matinee" (specifically, the line "Who gives a damn about the profits at Tesco?") gets in my head. And, when I hear the word "chop," Dana Carvey gets in my head:



So, yeah, it's funny how memory works. That seemed a lot funnier back in the 1980s. Or, maybe, it wasn't but it was catchy enough to stick anyway.

All that is a long, long, long way of explaining that Steve, the Chop Keeper at The Card Chop sent me a great envelope of cards. Steve is always good for a few great Brewers cards, and I'm always sure to get some awesome Milwaukee Braves from him also. This package was no different.

There were a couple of Brewers that I needed:



I mentioned in my post about the case break I was in that I did not get any Gold parallels and only a couple of other parallels, so Steve was kind enough to send me a Gold Matt Garza parallel. If only the Brewers could find a place to send Matt Garza, but I don't think anyone wants to take on his salary for the next two years based off how done he looked last year. It's tough to pitch when you have to fight off your infielders trying to stick forks in you.

The other card is an MLB Debut retail insert of Nelson Cruz. Cruz was originally a Mets signee as an 18-year-old out of the Dominican Republic in 1998. The Mets sent him to Oakland for Jorge Velandia (I haven't heard of him either). He spent four years in Oakland's system and showed real hitting ability in 2004 in Modesto (at age 23 in high-A, about right for the league) and at Midland in the Texas league.

The Brewers stole him from Oakland with pitcher Justin Lehr in exchange for Keith Ginter. He went to Huntsville and hit at age 24 in 2005 (.306/.388/.577) in Double A for half the season, and then hit .269/.382/.490 in Triple-A before getting a 7-plate-appearance cup of coffee in 2005. 

He hit again in 2006 in Nashville -- .302/.378/.528 -- before the Brewers thought, "wow, this guy might really be a hitter...let's trade him with Carlos Lee for Kevin Mench, Laynce Nix, Francisco Cordero, and a minor leaguer." In 2008, he was designated for assignment by the Rangers, cleared waivers at the end of spring training, and went to Triple-A and mashed. In 2009, the lights went on for Cruz. He was an all-star and, in the seven seasons since then, he has hit 219 HRs and slashed at a .277/.338/.522 pace. 

So, who knows -- maybe he doesn't become the player he's become if he's in Milwaukee. Cruz is certainly a natural DH, and the Brewers didn't exactly have a plethora of positions at which to hide him in that 2006-2012 timeframe with Fielder anchoring first, Braun in left, and Hart in right.

Okay, time for more chopping!




After that relaxing musical interlude, it's time to show some Milwaukee Braves!


I appreciate these Upper Deck cards more than I originally did. I did not realize that they were inspired by the T-202 Hassan Triple Folder cards until I saw a Dover reprint of one or two of the originals. Probably because my collecting never has focused on what I view as sort of prehistoric cards -- history began when Bowman did in 1948 to me...what can I say? -- these 1993 take-offs didn't make sense.  Now they do, and I like them a ton more.

And finally:



I tend to be pretty agnostic about the manu-relics. They would be about 8000 times cooler if they were real patches from real uniforms, but I recognize that those might be difficult both to find and to authenticate at this point. Plus, if they could be found in reasonably large numbers, I'm sure that Topps, Donruss, Upper Deck, and Fleer would have used literally all of them up in the 2001 to 2005 timeframe.

Still, that Red Schoendienst patch is pretty awesome. Growing up, I used to think that Red played a lot more for Milwaukee than he did (only 4 years and 1140 plate appearances) or that he was a Milwaukee native of some sort (nope -- he grew up about 40 miles from St. Louis in Germantown, Illinois). My grandpa loved Red Schoendienst. It was probably because Red had one of his best seasons in the major leagues in 1957 (a year split between the Giants and Braves), tallying 200 hits and hitting .309/.344/.451 overall (.310/.348/.434 for Milwaukee). No matter -- whenever I see one of his cards, I think of my grandpa.

The other three cards fit quite nicely into my Spahn and Mathews player collections. I'm up to 115 in the Spahn collection and a fantastic 172 in the Mathews collection.

Let's chop something up one more time:



Holy crap. I'm tired just listening to that dude rapping!

Steve, thank you once again for an excellent cards from The Card Chop!

More Christmas Cheer from the Card Chop

The great thing about being too busy to post before Christmas is that I get to keep Christmas alive after by posting about the cool stuff that folks have sent to me. I get it, though -- by the time I finish all these up, it'll be past New Year's Day, and no one wants Christmas trees up past New Year's Day.

Today's presents come from Idaho, courtesy of The Card Chop. 

A brief digression:  I know Night Owl is convinced that Braves bloggers now rule the Internet, and I think I agree. There probably is something to the fact that the TBS SuperStation -- you know, before TBS became synonymous with "reruns of TV Shows that may have been funny the first time you watched them but now feel hopelessly dated" -- carrying the Braves games nationwide in the 1980s and 1990s helped spur folks to become Braves fans even though they don't live anywhere close to Atlanta and probably think that someone making a reference to the Perimeter is a reference to a math story problem. 

Now, I'm not lumping The Chop Keeper into that group -- frankly, I'm not sure why the Chop Keeper is a Braves fan, and that really doesn't matter. But, the Braves being good for a long time starting about 25 years ago make sense as to why the bloggers are coming out now -- it's that lag between being a kid and a fan and being an adult trying to be a kid. 

I mean, 1992 was a great year for Braves fans -- going back to the World Series to prove that 1991 was not a fluke, for instance. It gave Braves fans their defining moment of fandom in the seventh game of the NLCS as well: the Sid Bream Slide. So, Braves fans, enjoy the game:

Meanwhile, I'll enjoy Robin Yount's 3000th Hit:

Both in card form and in video form:

That card was a great reminder of that simpler time in college when I really didn't like the Braves because, well, about 66% of the Vanderbilt campus suddenly starting wearing Braves hats and jumping on board the bandwagon.

A better reminder of even simpler times -- and a fun addition to my Yount collection -- was this one:

The scanner didn't pick up what you can definitely see in person -- that the white baseball on the front of this unopened "Super Size" card is fairly transparent. It's transparent enough to allow someone to see inside the package to tell that this pack holds a Robin Yount Super Baseball card.  

These two items are both great additions to my Robin Yount collection, which is inching closer to 900 items now. Hopefully, I'll add more to this collection soon.  In the meantime, just Super Size me.

Thanks again, Steve Chop Keeper, for the excellent Christmas gift and keep on chopping -- and thank Deion Sanders for that!

Get Off Hiatus, Chop Keeper!

A couple of weeks ago, Steve from the Card Chop announced that he was taking a summer hiatus from blogging. His reasoning is sound -- fighting blog burn out and working long hours combined with the familial responsibilities during the summer can take a toll on anyone.  I speak for myself and a lot of other bloggers, though, when I say come back soon, Steve!

Apparently to celebrate his stepping back a bit from blogging, Steve was kind enough to send a package my way -- even making reference to the #WarwithJBF monster packages along the way:

What frightening things I might find? What do you mean?

Those Wacky Packages are awesome.  I've never collected them, and probably won't, but that Twerx bar with its "Break Me off a Piece of That!" slogan is almost certainly scarier than Jason Voorhees.  I mean, Jason isn't real...but that scary-ass backwoods twerker is as real as it gets.

Thankfully, Steve didn't just sent me those. Otherwise, I would have considered that whole package to be just a big Troll-up. Steve sent me a few cards as well -- a few great cards, that is.

Not a bad start -- Rickie and Prince, the "Brew Crew" (imaginative name there, Topps).  

As a side note, crazy weird groups of players put together on a single card for no apparent reason other than the photographer caught them posing together -- like those Fleer cards in their first ten or so years of existence -- are sorely missing from cards today. Sure, it's great that I can get a Skittles rainbow of refractors of Trevor Plouffe, but how about giving me a card featuring Pat Neshek talking to Munenori Kawasaki?  Or a David Price and Sonny Gray "Anchor Down" card? Would it be such a bad thing to make cards fun again?

Now, to be fair, that was the only Brewers card that Steve sent to me.  

The rest?

Del Crandall and Bill Bruton -- two of the early stars of Milwaukee Braves baseball.  As a kid, I had no idea how good of a baseball player Del Crandall really was. I only thought of him as the really not-so-good manager of the Brewers and the Mariners.  As for Bruton, I only think of him as a Milwaukee Brave, but he finished his career with four seasons in Detroit.

And there were two more cards too:

More Delmar!  And Johnny Logan too!  I love the play at the plate that Del Crandall's card has and the double-play/turning two on Logan's card.  I wonder -- has Topps sold off that original artwork?

But those weren't even the best part!

Holy Johnny Logan Autograph!

Steve, thank you very much for the great cards including the awesome additions to my Milwaukee Braves collection and especially the Logan autograph!  Enjoy your time away from the blog, but you better come back.  Otherwise, you'll be forced to watch this video on constant loop like some sort of classical conditioning straight from "A Clockwork Orange."

On the Chopping Block

This week at Miller Park, a new feature will be debuting.  The feature is comprised of 1500 square feet of artifacts and gear to honor retired Commissioner Emeritus and former Brewers Owner Allan H. "Bud" Selig.  It's called "The Selig Experience at Miller Park."

The highlight, or perhaps the climax, of the show is "a surprising encounter with the Commissioner himself inside an authentic reproduction of Selig's County Stadium office, using a technology found in only a handful of exhibits around the world.  After the show, Milwaukee fans will be delighted to take a sneak peek into Selig's office for themselves."

Speaking for myself, that is not a tour I would want to take.  Now, don't get me wrong -- I appreciate all of Selig's hard work in tirelessly crusading for the return of baseball to Milwaukee in the time between the Braves left until Selig and his team of financiers took the Pilots from Seattle and bankruptcy.  I appreciate his willingness to spend money in the late 1970s and early 1980s -- before we heard Selig complaint about how competitive balance would be destroyed by free agency -- to build a team that could and did win and made it to the World Series.  

But I have to admit that the Selig Experience leaves me cold.  Again, don't misunderstand -- he made sure as the commissioner that revenue sharing was put into place, that the smaller markets might have a chance to succeed.  The biggest problem I have with Selig is that he spent his time worrying about being Commissioner for far too long as his own team rotted. Selig became acting commissioner in September of 1992.  The Brewers finished 1992 with a 92-70 record, 4 games out of first.

In my opinion, it is not a coincidence that the Brewers did not have another non-losing season -- even a .500 season -- until 2005.  Guess what happened in January of 2005? Yup, the Selig family sold the Brewers to current owner Mark Attanasio.  The problem is clear when you hear what he told his former fraternity brother at the University of Wisconsin, Lew Wolff, who owns the Oakland Athletics:  "When you join this, try to put baseball first and your team a very close second."

From 1992 to 2005, the Brewers were a very distant second.  Or maybe third, behind carrying the torch that small-market teams could not compete with larger market teams and making sure that the team was so bad to prove his own point.  

Perhaps it's fitting that the team has sucked this year.  It is, after all, the Selig Experience.



I had to get that off my chest.  

Now, to a far more positive experience -- the Chopping Block.

Specifically, I am talking about getting cards from the Chop Keeper himself, Steve from the Card Chop.  I know there are a lot of Dodgers bloggers out there, but I seem to trade with more Braves bloggers than anyone else.  That might have something to do with my location in Atlanta, I suppose.

A few weeks ago, Steve ripped through some Gypsy Queen packs and pulled one of those white framed parallels of one of my PC guys, Ryan Braun.  I had to claim it, of course, and it showed up shortly after.

Being the awesome guy that he is, that was not the only card to make its way to the ATL from the Card Chop.  Indeed, that is probably the lesser of the two top cards:

This Team Tandems from the Absolute Memorabilia set -- one of those Donruss sets with 200 cards and 2000 parallels from the mid-2000s -- features one-and-a-half year wonder Danny Kolb, who racked up 60 saves between July 19, 2003 and the end of 2004 -- and none other than one of my PCs, Ben Sheets. 

Sheets will be representing the Brewers at the 2015 MLB Draft on June 8.  Others appearing include Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson (for the Yankees), Andre Dawson and Tony Perez (for the Marlins), and Mike Schmidt for the Phillies.  Lesser lights appearing include Bob Boone for the Nationals, Lee Smith for the Giants, and B.J. Surhoff...for the Orioles.

For the Braves? Ralph Garr and Greg McMichael.  

I bet that will still be more uplifting to me than The Selig Experience!

Steve, thank you very much for these and the other cards you sent to me -- they are greatly appreciated!

The Card Chops Uggla

Living in Atlanta, I know that many, many people were quite happy to see the end of the Dan Uggla era in Atlanta.  Uggla came up with the Marlins after being selected in the Rule 5 draft in 2005 and he became an immediate All-Star in Miami.  During his 5 years there -- from ages 26 to 30 -- he averaged 31 HR and 93 RBI a season with a slash line of .263/.349/.488. 

After the 2010 season, the Braves traded two players to get Uggla and immediately handed him a five-year, $62 million contract. The move was panned by many commentators immediately and for years to come.  While some Braves fans tried talking themselves into the idea that it wasn't as bad as it seemed, Uggla's play with the Braves started as acceptable and turned into atrocious -- leading the Braves to eat the last about $18 million of the contract to release him last year.  

But, I wondered for a while what Braves fans really thought of him.  Did they view him for the good he brought his first two years in Atlanta, or did they think of him with his .179 batting average in 2013 (.179/.309/.362) and the even-worse .162/.241/.231 in 2014?

I think Steve of The Card Chop -- the Chop Keeper himself -- answered that question for me without saying a word.

When you use a guy's card as a notepad, it becomes pretty clear what your feelings for the guy are.  Maybe I need to take all my 1985 Topps Yankees, punch a hole in them, and put them on a ring to use as a carry-along notepad.  

But, to further dirty Uggla's name -- legally and honestly, of course...remember kids, in defamation cases truth is an absolute defense -- let's turn to the Google Image search for Dan Uggla's Greatest Moments in History!

1.  Uggla Strikes Out on a Pitch that Nearly Hits Him

Finding Dan Uggla gifs has been a lot of fun.  Let's lead off with this fantastic "strike out dive out of the way to avoid getting my knee hit" against the Giants.   

Leading off for the cards that Steve sent me is the Clay Stock card to which Heritage Uggla the Notepad referred:

Strangely enough, I learned only this week about this variant from 2010's update set.  The old-school Topps logo was the giveaway here -- apparently the logo along with the "clay" cardstock was a Target exclusive for 2010.  Now that I know that, I now need to find them. Thankfully, now, I have one fewer card to look for.

2.  Uggla dives away in fear from a slider that is called a strike

Just so Braves fans can laugh, Uggla did something similar already in his stint this year with the Nationals:

Such hitting prowess and acumen deserves a fantastic card to go with it:

This 2011 Allen & Ginter black bordered mini of Rickie Weeks is much cooler than an Uggla-fying taken strike.  Without a doubt.

3.  Uggla Shows Off His Gun, Gets an Assist from the Outfield

Maybe.

I mean, look at what a smart player Uggla is.  He knew that the runner wouldn't try to advance and score if he got the ball in right away. So, he "whiffed" on the throw to goad the runner into going, then lollipopped the ball to first because he felt bad.  What a sweetheart!

Just like Ryan Braun.

4.  Uggla as Giant: Hit it Here!

Uggla didn't spend long in San Francisco -- 4 games in which he went 0-for-11 with one walk, an OPS+ of -73, and two errors.  Needless to say, Uggla didn't make the post-season roster.

But this guy always did:

Of course, he only got two opportunities in the post-season, but he was the first player to ever have two four-hit games in a single World Series.

5.  Not everything Uggla Ever Did was All Bad

I mean, anything that gives us Freddie Freeman dancing like John Travolta in Staying Alive can't be all bad.  It was Uggla's second wedding -- when Uggla married current wife Janette. In between his split and divorce from his first wife Tara in around 2007 and marrying Janette in 2013, Uggla apparently hooked up with porn star and noted friend of Rob Gronkowski Bibi Jones.  Jones would have been about 18 or 19, and Uggla would still have been a decent major league player at the time.

Seems like forever ago.

But these incredible Freeman dance moves deserve a great closing item:

This is one of several 5" x 7-1/2" "cards" given out by Ohio Casualty Group to commemorate Milwaukee County Stadium's closing.

It's a terrible tragedy that the collapse of the huge Mitsubishi on July 14, 1999 -- which killed 3 construction workers -- caused the old Milwaukee County Stadium to have to remain open through 2000 instead of 1999.  

It's no laughing matter.  

But Dan Uggla is.  

Right, Dan?

Many thanks to The Chop Keeper for these great cards, especially the Torre!

Catching up on Trades

I have gotten buried this week by stuff going on in life and by having gone a little overboard on buying on eBay and buying unopened stuff.  The buying stuff this week is what led me to my reflectiveness in my last post, while the poker with the neighborhood guys is what led me to get behind on posting.  I'll get to the unopened stuff in another post, but I want and need to get caught up on some trades that came in for me this week.

First, Pat from Hot Corner Cards sent me a fantastic box of 2013 update and 2014 Topps cards to help me fill in gaps in my collection of those sets.  I am still sorting through all of them, but I wanted to say a hearty "Thank YOU!" to Pat.  In his honor, I'm posting something I got through the mail back in about 1987:

Pat, I agree with you -- Alan Trammell belongs in the Hall of Fame.  He had the misfortune of having a career at the same time as several all-time greats -- everyone from Robin Yount (who had a 4-year head start and started in the majors as a teen just a bit earlier) to Cal Ripken Jr. (on whom Trammell had a 4-year head start) to Ozzie Smith (almost a direct contemporary) to Barry Larkin (10 years later) and Derek Jeter, whom Trammell overlapped by a year.  He also had six injury filled years at the end of his career that cost him any chance at 3000 hits.  Trammell was a great player and one I thought at the time did not get enough credit.

I also grabbed a nice serial numbered card (325/499) from the Quarry and some other fine Brewers cards to help continue filling that gaping hole in my collecting years called 1991 through 2007.  Here's the cool Prince Fielder I snagged:

In the mail today I was the recipient of a bubble mailer from The Card Chop.  I still owe The Chop a return package, which I'm putting together this weekend along with a couple of other envelopes I'm about ready to send.  But I always appreciate getting a great oddball Robin Yount to add to my collection -- especially one with a note saying that Yount was going to a good home.

A Canadian General Mills sticker from MSA in the 1980s is heading to the Hiatus Yount binder to replace the yellow piece of paper placeholder.

Also making the trip from Idaho was a card from my childhood non-Brewer favorite, Gary Carter, from the Topps Archives set in 2012:

All in all, it was a good week for trades here.  Now, over the rest of this weekend, I have to figure out what I got in the other stuff I got this week.  It includes everything from one of the earliest Brewers sets ever printed to cracking three boxes of 2012 Topps Series 2 to two wonderful Hostess Panels from the 1970s.

Stay tuned!

Another Five-Star Acquisition, Brewers Police Cards Made it to Idaho, and a Box Break Delivery

Another day, another mail delivery.  I think my wife is thinking I've taken out a second mortgage on the house to buy cards.  Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Today's mail brought me three different packages of goodness in different sizes.  I had a padded envelope for a purchase from the four-color auction marketplace for a Ryan Braun 2013 Topps Five-Star card. 

This purchase was a basic lesson in working the system on eBay.  This card was available in a fixed price sale at the same time that an auction was ongoing.  So, of course, I set my maximum bid for the auction slightly less than the amount this one cost.  When the auction blew past the fixed price sale, I immediately grabbed this card. I'd say that I feel smart for doing that, but I'm horrible about both impulse buying and about trying too hard to win auctions on eBay.  To be calculating and cautious was a good change.

The second delivery was a PWE from Idaho -- the Card Chop delivered again.  Somehow, three cards from the Brewers Franklin Police Department and Franklin Noon Lions Club (and yes, there are at least two different Lions Clubs in Franklin, I just learned) set made their way out to The Chop Keeper, and he was kind enough to shuffle them my way.  Here's Rickie Weeks to lend advice to kids:

That's right Rickie, be good.  Deeply profound words from the sometimes second baseman.  Thanks a bunch, Chop Keeper!

Finally, a mailer box arrived from Nachos Grande with the booty from the recent group box break he ran, the 2011 Allen & Ginter set I bought with my three slots, and some extra Brewers that Chris was kind enough to throw in.  While I would have loved to have had the Brewers for that break (hey Quarryman, I'm looking at you!), I was pleased to get some nice cards for all three of the teams I selected. 

First, from the Twins, what's better than a Hall of Famer showing up in your box?

Well, Blue Jays fans, don't feel left out -- a Hall of Famer showed up in the break in your uniform as well:

While there weren't any current Hall of Famers in the Diamondbacks group, one excellent player appeared often -- a guy who is, in my opinion, a Hall of Fame certainty so long as there aren't any PED revelations coming down the pike on him: Randy Johnson.

You gotta love the flying mullet. 

Finally, while I did not have the Brewers in my break, I still got a Brewer...tagging Luis Gonzalez out, it appears!

Hi there, Jeff Cirillo.

Thanks again to Chris for running the box break -- I really enjoyed it and I am looking forward to getting involved in a few more of those.